Bogdan Dziurzynski

As a young man at the height of the Vietnam War, Bogdan Dziurzynski had to make a choice. Should he wait to be drafted, or volunteer with the hope of landing a better assignment? Dziurzynski decided to volunteer. He had a degree in laboratory technology from a community college, and that was enough to earn him a place as a Navy corpsman -- a specialist who provides field combat first aid and other medical care for Navy sailors.

After training, Dziurzynski spent a year in Cuba assisting with sea-air rescues and then joined a ship off the coast of Vietnam, tending to soldier's injuries and illnesses. When his tour of duty was complete, he briefly considered medical school, but decided to find a career that would let him sleep through the night. He began contacting pharmaceutical companies, hoping that his combination of laboratory and medical experience would appeal to employers.

Johnson & Johnson's Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics soon offered him a position as a bench technician in its diagnostic reagents operation, where he assayed raw blood serum for antibodies. He stayed with the firm for 13 years, working his way from the bench to positions as a supervisor and then a manager. During an inspection conducted by the Food and Drug Administration, Ortho's head of regulatory affairs took note of how well Dziurzynski interacted with the FDA staff and offered him a position managing medical research in his department.

The work was demanding, but it was a chance for Dziurzynski to make use of his people skills as well as his scientific expertise. "A person in regulatory affairs has to interact with the scientists, with the marketing group, with the financial people, with the manufacturing group, with the clinical staff, with research and development, with quality assurance, and with quality control," he explains.

Management positions followed at Genetic Systems and Immunex, both in Seattle, and eventually Dziurzynski received a call from MedImmune, which was at the time a young company struggling to win FDA approval for an innovative monoclonal antibody treatment for respiratory syncytial virus. Dziurzynski thought the drug was promising, so he packed up his family and moved to Maryland to take a position as a vice president at the firm. Within a year of his arrival, MedImmune won approval for the therapy, and the company has since become a major player in the global biotech market.

The 56-year-old Dziurzynski says his success in the pharmaceutical industry has earned him the financial freedom to "kick back a little bit." Several years ago, he decided to become an independent regulatory consultant to drug firms and the government, a move that allows him a flexible schedule and the option to hand-pick his projects.

In addition to his consulting work, Dziurzynski is completing his dissertation for a doctorate in public administration at the University of Southern California. He is also an elected member of the board of directors for Dendreon, a Seattle-based cancer vaccine company, and is part of a team assembled by the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society that is helping the US State Department to retrain biological weapons experts from the former Soviet Union to make and market medicines.

-- Kate Fodor